8 Tips For Your Social Media Marketing That Will Boost Your SEO

We all want the content on our websites, blogs, and social media platforms to rank high on the search engines right?

Statistics show that seven of the 10 most important factors for SEO optimization come from social media. Is this an area you are taking advantage of? Are you leveraging your time and efforts through social media channels to get yourself noticed online?

Here are 8 tips you can work on to enhance your rankings:

1. Have a content strategy – Establish your niche and your target market. Keep it narrow to set yourself apart from the competition and to create a certain target market. Ask yourself: What are my customers’ challenges? How can I help them? – Create a solution to a problem. Determine what your target market can benefit from and provide that. What kinds of content will they like and what are they most likely to share.

2. Plan your social media marketing strategy – which platforms are you most familiar and comfortable with. Are your customers or prospects there? Don’t feel like you have to be all things to all people…or that you have to be on every single social platform. It’s best to perfect one or two first. Get some content out and see how she goes. Watch for feedback…likes and comments. Determine what is gaining the most attention… is it images? … surveys or questions? ….. or stories maybe. Informative content and educational marketing creates engagment. Check and adjust as you go.

3. Research Keywords – Study and learn what google is looking for now days. Read their Help pages andGoogle Keyword Tool. Learn to use relevent keywords. Keyword stuffing is no longer the way to go… there’s a big difference between “stuffing” and relevent responsible keyword selection. Too many keywords is not easy or natural reading. It needs to flow – that’s more important…and Google is more concerned now with quality content that relates to or fits the story.

4. Create relevant content – Determine what your customers or prospects want to hear and give it to them. Provide information and education related to what you are selling or to the message you want to get across. Don’t just tell people to buy your stuff, show them and tell them why they should buy your stuff. An informed person is more open to purchasing, and if you are the one doing the informing they are more open to purchasing from you. Lead in this way and they will follow.

5. Blog – Your blog is your hub and it’s where you want to send your traffic. Companies with blogs produce 67 percent more leads per month than companies without blogs. Add social share buttons to your blog’s homepage and, ideally, to the end of every post. Blogs are not static.. they tell stories…about you and about what you are selling. The story continues on a regular basis.People will re-visit your blog to find out what’s new and what’s happening. They want to be fed information.

6. Send email newsletters – Provide an opt-in form on your blog to generate subscribers. This will keep people in the know that haven’t been back to the blog in a while.Your newsletter can coax them back… begin a post with a “continue reading” link that points back to the blog. Be consistant so your subscribers come to depend and count on their weekly info, and provide relevent and good quality informative content. Include links to your social media channels in the newsletter as well.

7. Understand why content, social media marketing, and SEO work together – Search engines favor high value content and social media sites like sharable, linkable content. Combine the two and you will have a competitive advantage for attracting customers, whether people search on Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Some stats to consider:

• 70 percent of people would rather learn about a company through an article rather than advertising.

• 80 percent of U.S. internet users interact with social media sites and blogs.

Once again the best practice is to be sincere, real, and a source of information. Create relationships by providing high quality content so people want to hear what you have to say. Offer solutions and assistance. And link all your sites, blogs, and social media channels together…and you will be found.